INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the Blahnik family web. The Blahnik
name is not a real common one. The name originated in the Czech Republic
which was the old Kingdom of Bohemia. The name is currently found in the
Czech Republic, America, Canada and a few other European countries.
Probably the most well known Blahnik is the famous shoe designer, Manolo
Blahnik. We know his father came from Prague and his mother was Spanish.
There have also been some Blahnik musical composers. Roman Blahnik
1897-1966 in Prague and Joel Blahnik from Wisconsin who also writes and performs
in Czech.

The tabs located on the top of the
page discuss different Blahnik branches that have been located. Not all of
them have had a Y-DNA cheek swab test to see if they connect with other branches
at this time.
If you know your family group, click on the tab. If you are un certain,
the Family tree tab should link you back to the oldest known Blahnik male and
location of his birth. This will also give you the information to chose
which family tab you would wish to visit.

NAME BLAHNIK
The origins of the name "Blahnik" was discussed in the document by Ladislav
Blahnik called "History of the Family of Blahnik of Smrzovice (1842-1944).
He reflected on the work of Dr. Roubik. Ladislav suggested that the name
Blahnik could be found in the Christian name "Blazej", according to the old
Czech abbreviation, Blaha. He felt Blahnik could have meant "small Blaha"
or have been an abbreviated form. He pointed out the names of "Blasius
Hoden de Poczynovice" in 1430 as a city official and "Ondra et Blasius de
Poczynovice" in Latin records from 1434. Additionally there were
councilmen in 1481 named "Matthew & Blaha of Pocinovice". He felt these
were all precursors to the formal last name of "Blahnik". Blaha is a much more common name.
There has been no known DNA groups for Blaha to see if we connect with that name
even further back. Blahnik itself is not a real common name and so it was
thought all the Czech Blahniks were related.

(1) In any case,
it appears as though last names began to be more accepted for usage in Czech by the late
1400's to early 1500's. This is what makes genealogy prior to this time so
very difficult if not impossible. It is most likely that more than one
biological family chose the last name Blahnik
and were not in fact blood related to another Blahnik family other than being Czech. This is
most likely why there could be 5 different haplotypes in our current study.

(2) A second
possibility is that there could have been an interrupted male line for the
Blahnik family. The DNA test used to establish the paternal lineage comes
from the Y chromosome and will show the direct genetic path from father to son.
If that path were ever interrupted, then the name Blahnik and the Y DNA would no
longer match.

This possibility
would include something like a family carrying on an adopted name rather than
direct bloodline name of the father. A Blahnik could have adopted a son
and the son took his last name. We do know about one case of adoption by
one of the Algoma Blahnik immigrant sons.

Another possibility at
any point in time could
have been for a son choosing to use the mother's last name of Blahnik. That would have made
the child a Blahnik by blood, but not show up on the direct Y DNA information in
our DNA test. In checking the archives it was not uncommon for Czech women
(centuries ago who
were unmarried) having their children baptized with her last name.
This has been seen in the Czech record archives. Additionally there is a family story that Joel Blahnik
reported indicating at least one situation where the family chose to take the
mother's name of Blahnik rather than the father's name. Joel recounted
that there was family belief that during the time of Napoleon there was a man
who deserted the regiment and married a Blahnik woman in Chodsko. In order
to avoid being detected as a deserter from Napoleon's army, he purposely took on
his wife's last name of Blahnik and raise his children as Blahnik. This again
would have the name Blahnik without the Y DNA match directly to that name.

The only thing we know
at this point in time is that we have Y DNA showing at least 5 different Blahnik root families.
We suspect they are all different Czech male families who chose to use the last
name of Blahnik and are united by the fact that all of them are Czech families.

Background:
A study of all Blahniks known to have immigrated to America found 118
immigrantswith the last name of Blahnik. Thesepeople came from 32 families. At thispoint it
is unclear if all of those families were related or just immigrated atdifferent times. Wisconsin had thegreatest
number of Blahnik immigrants with 66people settling
in the state
of Wisconsin duringthe late
19th to early 20th century.

It
was discovered that among the 2011 Wisconsin
residents, amajority of them had their oldest
known ancestor coming from SW Bohemia in thearea
of Domazlice to Klatovy. One family (Smrzovice)
had a genealogical tree going back to the 1400’s and ancient ChodHeritage in Czech.

The break down for known Blahnik
immigrants shown below by the State that the families settled.

Wisconsin gained it's statehood in 1848. This occurred
about the same time as the serf statues was lifted in Bohemia. There was a
great deal of advertising in Czech and German newspapers encouraging people come
to settle this new state. This is probably why there were so many Czechs
coming to Wisconsin between 1850-1880. In 2011 the White pages the
people with the last name ofBlahnik had grown to 821
from these 118 immigrants. One third of these Blahniks were still livingin Wisconsin.Wisconsin had the most Czech immigrants in
the 1860 & 1870 census records for the US. More than half of our Blahnik families
did immigrate to Wisconsin and the Midwest, but we have settlements as far away
as Canada too.

In 2011 the greatest number of Blahniks in Czech
continued to live inthis same SW area of the
Czech Republic. Domazlice to Klatovy has the
highest population of Blahniks from land line phone records. In 2011
the land line records in Czech showed 519 listings while the US showed 821
listings. Wisconsin still showed the greatest number of Blahniks and
had increased from 66 immigration families to 303 homes some 150 years
later.

A note should be made here about how the numbers gathered
for this comparison. Cell phones are more common in Czech currently
than Land Lines are, so it is
possible that this is not as direct of a comparison as one might think.
Still, the Blahnik immigrants definitely established themselves on the North
American continent.

In 2012 a DNA group was up to see how we might
all relate. The information will be presented by the nameof the oldest known ancestor from each Blahnik family. Currently
five different families (Malefamily lines) have
been discovered.

Although 65 Blahnik families were identified at the
time of immigration, it was discovered that some of them were related to
others and also that some families died out with the Blahnik name (having
either no children or daughters only).

In 2011 there was a Blahnik family reunion held at
Blahnik Heritage Park in Algoma, WI. Blahniks from all over the world
were invited to attend. From this reunion the idea establishing a
Blahnik DNA group was discussed. Three Blahnik men initiated this
group and had no common ancestor back to the 1700's. All three of
these men were from a short distance from each other in NE Wisconsin.
They all turned out to be related. Other Blahnik males joined the
Y-DNA group to test for their paternal ancestry line.

So far, fifteen different male Blahniks from
what seemed likeseparate families took the DNA
test which resulted in these five different
groups. The groups are being identifiedby the
oldest known ancestor and the Haplogroup affiliated with them. The majority
of Czechs have an “R” or R1b Haplogroup(roughly
36%). None of our Blahnik families belong to this group. “R” is often
associated with the Celts and the Boiitribe was
said to have been pushed over the Alps into Czech (Bohemia) by theRomans. Three of our Blahnik families came from
the "I" group mutation while the other two come from "L" and "N".

The Five DNA Haplo GroupsThere is an article in the December 2013 issue of Nase Rodina. That is the
Genealogical Magazine from CGSI (Czechoslovak GenealogicalSociety International) and discusses our
Blahnik
DNA Project. The info below expands on some of the DNA groups
while a fuller explanation for the Libkov group can be found in this article

1- Haplo I2a or I-P37.2 Lipkov,
Bohemia includes familiesfrom Czech villages
Smrzovice, Kout,
Vitovky, Myto (PA) and Loucim, CZ. Also immigrant locations for Winnipeg
Canada, Algoma WI are included withthisgroup. This includes both American
and Czech DNA samples. The oldest knownancestor
was Ondra Blahnik c1455 Libkov (between Domazlice and Klatovy) -after1482.
This appears to be the largest Blahnik family both in Czech and North
America. See ancestral migration map below and the
known genealogical tree that we currently have available. There were some branches that split off the
trunk earlier which are likely the Kout, Vitovky and
Loucim Blahniks. Though they are connected genetically, thegenealogical connection has yet to be found.LIBKOV BLAHNIKS

2-Haplo
N1C1 or
N-M231
has been found for two different families. There is an immigrant family
named Blahnikwho settled in
Ashland, WI. Their
oldestknown ancestor was Jan (John) Blahnik c1825
possibly Chodska Lhota, Bohemia. There was also a man in
Prague, Czech Republicthat match his DNA with this
Wisconsin family whose oldest known ancestor was
Frantisekc1875 from the Village Trhanov (near Domazlice) Bohemia.

Mike Glime estimates that these two branches shared
the same direct ancestor in the late 1700's. There is also a third
party match with a man whose last name is Stanley. This means the
family split between the Blahniks and this man's family probably occurred
before the standard use of last names. The N Haplogroup is frequently
found among the Turks, Russians, Finns, Baltic, Eastern Prussia and even in
Russia. The exact path of this family to Czech has not been determined
at this time. Perhaps the most likely place could be from Eastern
Prussia which is close to Czech. I should be noted that there is an
FTDNA direct match with a Mr. Stanley in Slovakia. The split with the
Blahnik may have happened before last names became commonly used.

3-Haplo I1
or I-M253 belongsto one of the immigrant families that settled in Iowa. The oldest
known ancestor for this group is Georg (Jiri) Blahnik b: in Bohemia
estimated birth 1840. He married Dorothea (Janva) Janca Janda and they
lived in Mlynec, Klatovy in the mid 1800’s.

There are a few Blahnik immigrant families that came to
Iowa. One family has been tested so far. The FTDNA program
suggests the I1 lineage may have started in northern France. It was
found most frequently in the Viking/Scandinavian area of NW Europe and spread
from there down to Central and Eastern Europe. This Haplo DNA marker is not shown in
great frequencies in East/Central Europe but is likely how this Blahnik
group came to Czech.

4-I2b1 or
I-M223
is the Haplogroup for an ancestral Blahnik family from
Ledvice. The oldest
known ancestor of this group is Joseph
Blahnik 1875 Ledvice, Bohemia. This family emigrated to France before
coming to America in the nextgeneration.
Descendents can be found inIL and WI.

The basic migration map is similar to both the
Libkov Blahniks and the I-M253 Iowa group since they all come within the "I"
group mutation. From the basic "I" mutations they took slightly
different paths. FTDNA suggests that I2b1 may actually have had its
roots in Northern France like I1. This group probably took a similar
path as the I-M253 Blahniks since it is a genetic subgroup.
Haplo I2b1 external link.

5-Haplo
L-M61
was found forthe group known as the Volduchy
Blahniks. The oldest known ancestor was Matej Blahnik b:
c1775 Bohemia. The family lived in
Litohlvy (just east of Plzen) in the early 1800's. Two generations
later Frantisek left from Minnesota USA in 1906.

The L-M61 is an interesting Haplotype forthis Czech family. One source suggests that
50% of the men living in southern India have this marker.
It should be noted that it is also common in the Middle East among the
Turks, Saudis and Pakistanis. Perhaps the Volduchy Blahnik group
came through the Middle East making their way up to the Czech Republic.
Research continues and this current path may alter. Certainly India is
where most people with this L Haplo are now living .

A basic $60 test would indicate which of the 5 family lines
belong to them.

The Blahnik DNA group is open for more testing. There
are Blahniks in other European Countries as well as other immigrant families
who have not been tested. We invite any male Blahniks (also spelled
Blacknik and Blamick with some American immigrant families) to join and
connect with your Czech Cousins.

Bob Blahnik
continues regularly search obits
in the Wisconsin papers and they are updated in the family tree.

2007 GEDfile indexed 6811
names
2008 Indexed updated with 400
new names since 2007 for a total of 7311 names.
2009 Indexed 7741 people for an addition of 430 names.
2011 January -indexes
updated to 8644
individuals
2011 September - 9802 Individuals
now in database
*needs to be updates

Flag correction per Ludmila Nová
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BohemiaI would have a little correction for your web site:
so, the Czech / Bohemian flag looks like this: the red colour is down and the
white colour up on the flag (the teachers say to the small children at school
this "key": "the blood is falling down, but the
peace dove is flying up". -Thanks Ludmila!

This web page is meant for all members of the
Blahnik family and its descendents. There is also information pages
about the American Immigrants, History of the family and Blahnik names we have
not yet connected to the main tree. I'm entering the Blahnik names I have
located in the County Register of Deeds
offices, Census recordsand Pilzn
Archives and trying to connect them to the tree as well. Any
assistance with information is greatly appreciated.If you have more information or corrections please contact
Lori
Dollevoet and include your
sources.